Nana Joes

Nana Joes is a local San Francisco based granola company.  You can find them at farmer's markets, and a few assorted grocery stores in the area.  But I haven't actually had their granola, even though it makes up a majority of their offerings.  They also make a few other assorted snack foods, which I recently had the opportunity to try.

Like a good local company, they source from other local companies too.  Their chocolate comes from TCHO, the coffee from Four Barrel.  I believe all of their products are vegan and gluten-free too.

Orange Spiced Mixed Nuts.

"Orange spiced nuts are the holiday favorite! With pecans, walnuts and cashews these nuts have a spicy salt zing that can accompany any party. "

I love seasoned nuts, so I was really looking forward to these.  But I didn't like them.

The mix was mostly cashews and almonds, with a few walnuts.  I didn't find any pecans.  The seasoning was just really strange, a mix of orange, nutmeg, and other spices.  I get the seasonal appeal, but the flavors really did not come together for me.

Ocean Beach Granola Bar.

Next I went for the Ocean Beach Granola bar.  It starts with an oat base, adds crunchy TCHO cocoa nibs, is bound with almond butter, sweetened with maple syrup, and accented by decaf Four Barrel Coffee and cinnamon.

To call this a hard style granola bar is an understatement.  It was a rock.  Like, actually hard to bite into.  The cinnamon flavor was nice, but overall it seemed bitter.  Really not my thing.

Gluten Free Chocolate Oatmeal Cashew Butter Cookie.

After the earlier products that I didn't like, you might be surprised that I kept trying.  But for you dear readers, I try many things!  And this time, I was rewarded.

The cookie was a total surprise!  I like cookies of course, but in the realm of desserts, they fall at the very bottom of the list for me.

I went to take a bite, and it sorta crumbled into pieces.  It was super dry.  At this point, I was expecting to take a bite and move on.

But then I tasted it.  It was delicious!  Unlike a standard oatmeal cookie, it did not have large amounts of visible oats, rather, they had been ground up inside, I think because it was gluten-free and didn't use any substitute flours?  The flavor combination from the chocolate and cashew butter was really good.

I liked this far more than I expected, and I'd gladly eat another if I wanted a cookie.